The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club (4 page)

The sun dappled her lightly tanned shoulders as she leaned against a pine tree, watching a yellow butterfly dart amongst the foliage, and considered her options. She wanted to see Nicanor again. She yearned for him. Against all her better judgement, she had wrestled with her conscience for hours each night as she lay in bed thinking about that extraordinary night.

Yes, Nicanor had taken her by force. Yes, he had hurt her, but after subtly questioning her best girlfriend Livia after school one day about sex, Livia had confided, ‘Losing my virginity hurt like hell, Carlotta, but after that it was heavenly.’

Carlotta ruminated as she gazed up at the blue summer sky and the scudding clouds. The memory of the feelings she had finally experienced with Nicanor had become her most prevailing thought. She had known little real affection in her life. Her father had left her mother shortly after Carlotta was born and her mother blamed the new baby for his disappearance. Consequently she gave little heed to Carlotta when the baby cried or when, as a toddler, she hung on to her mother’s skirts, hoping for a crumb of affection but receiving nothing. Her grandmother was more affectionate and loving, but the old lady suffered from painful arthritis and her withered old limbs didn’t make cuddling Carlotta comfortable.

As she lay in bed at night, her hands strayed to that place whence Nicanor had extracted such deep pleasure, and she found herself climaxing gently to images of his mouth on her body and his lips on hers. She knew these were wicked thoughts and actions and she tried to banish them, but it was difficult when every magazine she scanned there he strutted, the ‘Gaucho’, with his handsome, insouciant gaze, his tight trousers outlining his manhood, one hand on his hip, the other holding the harness of a fierce black stallion.

On the outskirts of the village, Carlotta had passed another giant coloured poster of him proclaiming the values of Di Ponti sugar while astride a horse. He looked supremely confident, supremely male, and Carlotta realised she was supremely smitten.

Suddenly there was an excruciating roar and a posse of leather-clad young men on motorcycles zoomed past her, the noise of their exhausts so loud that she had to put her fingers in her ears. After they had ridden into the distance in a haze of fumes, one of the cycles stopped, turned, and came back to where Carlotta sat. As the rider stepped down and removed his helmet, Carlotta’s heart leaped.

‘My butterfly, I’m so happy to see you here!’ Nicanor smiled broadly. Bending to hug her, he took a huge bite of her sandwich and sat down beside her.

‘Oh, what are you doing here?’ she stammered. ‘I thought you’d forgotten about me.’

‘Forget you? My gorgeous butterfly – never. You have been in my thoughts the whole time. I’ve been on a trip,’ he laughed, then took another bite of her sandwich as Carlotta gazed at him open mouthed.

My God, but he was even more handsome than ever in his black leather jacket and trousers.
His raven hair clung to his head in tight curls that accentuated the darkness of his eyes.

‘Miss me?’ he grinned, his mouth full of Carlotta’s lunch.

‘Ah, ye-es . . . yes, I did but, why . . . why didn’t you call me or send a message . . .?’

‘My darling – I thought of you when we were on the road with my gang and I couldn’t . . . well, you know what it’s like when you’re in a group. We went all the way to Punta del Este,’ he laughed. ‘God, we had fun!’

Carlotta took a sip from her water bottle and kept silent. She didn’t know what to say and remembered the advice of her ancient grandma:
If you don’t know what to say – say nothing.

Misinterpreting her silence for reproach, Nicanor looked repentant. ‘I’m sorry, my love, truly sorry. I’m a rat, I know, but it hasn’t been that long, has it?’

‘Ten days,’ said Carlotta weakly.

‘Then let’s start making up for them right now,’ he declared and, taking her hand, led her deeper into the dense foliage until they came to a grassy clearing surrounded by flowering bushes and smelling of hibiscus. He laid her softly on the grassy mound and looked into her beautiful innocent brown eyes. ‘How lovely you are,’ he breathed as he brushed her parted lips with his.

Undoing the halterneck tie, his hands pushed the straps of her sundress to her waist and his lips eagerly found her soft mounds. It was useless to resist, and besides, Carlotta loved the feel of his mouth on her breasts, the touch of his hand on her loins, which felt heavy with desire. In seconds she came, her cries mixing with those of the Andean gulls that circled above them.

‘Hush, hush,’ he whispered, entering her while she still quivered with ecstasy. ‘Hush, my little butterfly. We have our whole lives ahead of us to make love.’

They married four months later, on Carlotta’s seventeenth birthday, in a lavish ceremony in Buenos Aires at the Metropolitan Cathedral. Society, royalty and A-list celebrities ensured that the wedding received maximum coverage in
People, Vanity Fair
and
Hello!
magazine. Carlotta was a ravishing bride in a pure white Alençon lace wedding dress by Valentino.

Her jet-black hair, held on her forehead by a hundred-carat antique diamond necklace that had been in the Di Ponti family for nearly two hundred years, flowed down her back, covered in a downy soft veil embroidered with tiny butterflies.

The gown had a thirty-foot train and was carried by a dozen tiny tots, all distant relatives of Madame Elsa Di Ponti, the fearsome matriarch of the Di Ponti clan and mother of Nicanor.

‘The most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen,’ Adolpho breathed in admiration to his employer and mentor, the legendary screen star Sophie Silvestri, as they watched the couple walk up the aisle.

‘She’s short.’ Sophie was hard-pressed ever to give a good review to a beautiful woman, particularly one of only seventeen summers.

‘Petite,’ answered Adolpho. ‘A perfect little package, I would say.’

‘Well, since you bat for the other team, I don’t think you’re much of a judge of female flesh,’ said Sophie, checking her immaculate
maquillage
in a jewel-encrusted
minaudière
.

‘Shhh!’
hissed the famous record producer Khris Kane, who was sitting behind them.

I think she’s a little beauty.’ Adolpho turned to look at the newly-weds as they passed the flower-covered aisle in a flurry of confetti and petals.

Sophie turned to him. Snapping her compact shut, she adjusted the blonde confection of her wig and the tiny hat tilted over her famous blue eyes and sneered. ‘A little! A
very
little beauty she may be, but she’s bitten off far more than she can chew with this marriage.’

What do you mean?’ asked Adolpho, nonplussed.

‘Darling,
everyone
knows Nicanor Di Ponti is a complete bastard and an absolute degenerate.’

They stood up as the congregation began to shuffle out into the brilliant sunshine.

‘Everyone
knows,’
whispered Sophie. ‘The family have tried to hush it up for years. Apparently he almost killed a young girl a couple of years ago. The Di Ponti family had to pay the girl’s parents a fortune to buy their silence.’

Adolpho stared at the receding figures of the laughing bride and groom as they exited the church to shouts and cheers from the excited crowd outside and the blinding flashes of the cameras.

‘Then,’ Sophie bent to whisper in Adolpho’s ear, ‘he was caught in a New York hotel last year with three girls all under the age of sixteen and with enough heroin to service a drug addict for a month.’

How come he wasn’t arrested?’

‘Diplomatic immunity. The Di Ponti family have a lot of influence, darling. When it comes to the drug offences of the rich, it’s easy to turn the other cheek if the rich grease palms with enough silver.’

Well, he looks ecstatic with the new bride,’ said Adolpho.

Yes, the perfect picture of happy newly-weds,’ answered Sophie, graciously acknowledging the cheers of the crowd as she came out of the cathedral. ‘Just you wait and see,’ she whispered.

For Carlotta the honeymoon period did not last long.

They flew to Las Vegas – a strange choice, thought Carlotta. She had tried to influence her new husband to go somewhere more romantic, but what Nicanor wanted, Nicanor got. Their honeymoon suite was garish; as big as an arena, complete with four bedrooms, a fully stocked wet bar and a butler who discreetly slipped tightly wrapped packets of white powder into Nicanor’s pockets whenever he was asked.

After a desultory bout of lovemaking on their wedding night, Nicanor had disappeared to the baccarat and blackjack tables. She had gone with him the second night, but the noise and clatter and flashing lights of the casino gave her a headache, and playing blackjack, which she did badly, or roulette, at which she consistently lost, frustrated her. She tried the slot machines but the intense monotony of pressing a button over and over again to get a line of matching fruits bored her to tears.

The front windows of the huge rooms overlooked the Vegas strip, where lonely Carlotta spent hours sitting with binoculars, helpfully provided by the hotel, to gaze at the passing throngs. In their Lycra shorts and flashy cheap T-shirts, most of them were so fat that Carlotta wondered how they could even walk.

She persuaded Nicanor to get tickets for Cher’s show at Caesars Palace, but on the appointed night he simply disappeared, so she watched her favourite star, cavorting on stage in gorgeous Bob Mackie gowns, all by herself.

That night she couldn’t sleep then Nicanor showed up stoned and stinking of vodka at four a.m.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked. ‘I looked everywhere for you. I had to go and see Cher alone last night.’

Oh, you poor baby,’ Nicanor spat out sarcastically. Throwing off his sweat-stained silk shirt. ‘Feel sorry for me, why don’t you? I’ve just lost thirty thousand dollars on that crappy poker game – Texas hold’em.’ He drawled out the word in a hideous impression of a mid-Western accent.

‘Well, I think that serves you right.’ Carlotta sat up in bed defiantly, emboldened to stand up for herself. We’re married and we should do things together.’

‘We should? We
should?
Ha!’ Nicanor stalked towards the massive four-poster bed, which was festooned with hanging ropes and mirrors on the ceiling and on the walls at either side. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what I
should
and shouldn’t do, woman!’ He raised his hand and hit Carlotta so hard on the cheek that she yelped and fell back whimpering.

Oh, yes, go on – cry, why don’t you? D’you want to cry like the silly little idiot you are? Then I’ll give you something to cry about, you stupid little bitch!’

Horrified, Carlotta saw her husband rip off his trousers. Without preamble he tore off her flimsy nightgown, then threw himself on top of her. Where once he tenderly licked and kissed, now he bit her breasts so savagely that they bled. He plunged into her with the atavistic roar of a wild animal, and thrust so hard that she screamed with pain.

‘Stop it, Nico – stop it, please!’

‘Why should I?’ he growled. ‘You’re mine, I can do what I want with you. You belong to me now.’ He thrust harder and grabbed her breasts, squeezing them violently as she moaned in agony.

‘Stop it, Nico, stop it! You’re hurting our baby!’

‘Our
what?’
Nicanor stopped abruptly and stared at her with bloodshot eyes.

‘Our baby,’ cried Carlotta. ‘Nico, I’m pregnant.’

‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’ He rolled off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, his flaccid penis hanging forlornly on his thigh. ‘When did you . . . are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ said Carlotta quietly. ‘I went to see a nice American doctor today because I suspected and it’s true – I am.’ She smiled pleadingly, hoping that now perhaps Nicanor would become the tender lover that he had been before the marriage. ‘I’m only seven weeks but it’s definite.’

‘Then you must rest,’ he slurred, as he staggered up and walked shakily to the bathroom. ‘I won’t bother you again, my dear.’